Kalen DeBoer discusses replacing all three Alabama specialists in 2025

ATLANTA — Alabama had one of the best specialists units in the country a season ago, but the Crimson Tide’s special teams unit is going to look drastically different coming into 2025.

There were minimal seniors on last year’s Alabama roster, but of the seniors that were there, three of them included the Tide’s starters at punter, kicker and long snapper. At SEC Media Days on Wednesday, head coach Kalen DeBoer discussed the confidence he has in the replacements at those positions.

“When it comes to who we lost, really eight seniors last year, three on defense, two on offense, three specialists, which got asked that question the first time in a long time, talking about our specialists. It’s one of the positions, one of the areas you always kind of look past,” DeBoer said. “As much as we played young guys, we played I think the most freshmen on special teams snaps in the entire league, I think it really wasn’t even close. There were also three specialists – punter, kicker and long snapper – that were mainstays in the program for quite some time or had a lot of experience playing at a high level.

“We replaced all of those guys. That will probably be something we really got to work through. Got confidence and belief in the guys in our program that they’ll step up.”

At punter, Alabama had one of the best in the both the SEC and the nation last year in James Burnip. He was a multi-year starter in the Tide program, and has an All-SEC selection in 2023 on his resume.

“James Burnip’s been the best punter I’ve ever had,” DeBoer said. “Replacing him, we’ve got a couple options that are good options.”

It’s still unclear who exactly will replace him for Week 1, but the options include highly-ranked freshman Alex Asparuhov as well as Blake Doud, a senior transfer from Colorado School of Mines.

“Long snapper, Kneeland Hibbett was super consistent,” DeBoer said. “We brought in some guys, we’ve got some guys in the program that I think will do a good job.”

Hibbett was another multi-year starter and widely considered to be one of the best long snappers in the SEC. Alabama brought in David Bird, a transfer from Cal, while Jay Williams spent last season as the backup and is back for his sophomore year.

Finally there’s the placekicker position, which was manned by Graham Nicholson after transferring in from Miami (OH) for his final year of eligibility. He has perhaps the easiest succession plan of the rest of the specialists, having a primary backup in Conor Talty a year ago that also took on kickoff duties.

Talty has been in the Alabama program for two full years already after being ranked the No. 2 kicker in the 2023 recruiting class. He’s 4-for-4 on extra points in his career, but has yet to attempt an in-game field goal.

“Kicker, we have some options there in Conor Talty,” DeBoer said. “We went and got Graham Nicholson a year ago. We didn’t feel like Conor was quite ready, had the potential. Appreciate him sticking it out. He’s really taken that next step with his consistency, and got a strong enough leg. I think getting some experience in the kickoff world helped him fill better about everything as well.”

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